My name is Ken Parks, and I am President of HS Solutions: a manufacture’s rep firm that specializes in supporting electronic components for the automobile and industrial markets.

I grew up in church as a troubled youth. Now, troubled youth means something a little bit different back then. I was in trouble all the time. But my problem was the sin in my life. I started drinking alcohol when I was 13. My parents had pornography in the home that later caused me to become involved in sexual promiscuity. We also had tobacco, both kinds wacky tabacky (marijuana) and regular tabacky.

My mom and dad were married 54 years, so you can have parents that are good strong married people and you can have no married parents, and you can still end up being in trouble. We need to know that sin spans across our lives, whether you have parents who are married, or you have a father and mother who are not married.

I got saved as a young man in an Assembly of God Church and was baptized in the Holy Spirit at age 16 before enlisting in the Navy. Traveling around the world and being in the Navy had everything to offer: alcohol, drugs, and other promiscuous activities. But before I go any further, I want to share something. I was in the navy for eight years, and I was honorably discharged. I was a leader, but in the military I sold drugs. I’m not proud of that. I want to ask our military personnel for forgiveness. As I received my discharged papers, I was being investigated by naval investigation services for dealing drugs. I was able to get out of the navy before the NCIS was able to send me in Ft. Leavenworth. One burden, (doing and selling drugs in the military), I have carried for many years. In the Navy, my first marriage failed. Things don't work out well when you party all the time, drink, and use drugs.

I got out of the navy in 1981, remarried, and my second marriage failed. I’m not proud of these things either. For people that I’m sharing with that are married to the same wife for one year or many years, I honor you. God forgives us even when we fall short.

I thank God now that I’ve been married for six years, and my wife is a wonderful Christian lady. I was divorced twenty two years before marrying a wonderful Christian woman. She’s a licensed translator; she’s helped Douglas Raine to translate God’s Plan of Salvation into Spanish; and she has also supported another brother Dr. Caquias, in translating his book to Spanish. She is a partner through and through and she loves me in spite of my past.

Back to my second marriage, my wife and I worked together in the same firm. My wife was manic depressive. She was hunting me down at work, and hunting me down at home. It was better to be in a small house than in a big house with a brawling woman. So I set up a room in the garage. I was living in the garage, but I was having my own troubles, this is not all about my wife.

I remember in my garage which had a night stand for my ashtray, tequila, and my Bible which I started reading. I was sitting there, drinking tequila, smoking cigarettes, and reading my Bible.

I was gaining knowledge, but I just started crying. I was hurting so much. I started crying out to the Lord, and reading my Bible. I told God that I’m in a real big mess. The pressure was unbearable. I remember reading through the Bible when I was young, and read “I waited patiently for the LORD; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. 2 He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. 3 And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the LORD – PSALM 40:1-3 (KJV).”

I remember when I went to the Assembly of God Church, we used to sing a song: “?He took me out of the miry clay. He set my feet on a rock to stay?” just then tears rolled down my face, and God inclined with me. There I was drinking my tequila, smoking cigarettes, and He inclined unto me in my garage. He came down from Heaven, and touched me in my garage, while I was in the pit of despair. My wife came home that night in a manic depressive state. I was sitting there drinking my tequila and smoking cigarettes. She came in the room for the first time. It was the ultimate man’s cave. I had a drink on my table and she said, “I see you are reading the Bible! You believe in God now?” I said, “Oh I’m working on it!” And she said, “If you believe in God now, why don't you have Him have you quit smoking.” I said, “I believe in due time, He’s going to do that.”

And then she walked over, picked up my tequila glass, and smashed it in my face. The pain was more emotional than the pain of the glass against my face. I was crying through the night. The next day was Sunday, and I thought I would go to church, but I said. “I just want to get away.” I drove to the University of Texas in Plano, Texas. I knew there was an open field. I just started walking across the field. I picked up a flower; and I thought of God, the creator; and I said, “God I’m so troubled.” We had a lot of rain during that time, and I remember walking across the field and getting mud on my shoes. I remembered as a youth growing up at home; I would go up our back steps and wipe the mud off my shoes, and my mother would yell at me.

As I walked in that field crying out to God, I came across a concrete foundation with no building on it. I got on that foundation and being 6’6” (I was like 6’8” with all that mud), I went over to one side of the foundation and started scrapping the mud off my shoes, and God spoke to me and said, “I’m taking your feet out of the miry clay, and I’m setting your feet upon the rock.” At that moment there was a jogger that came by on a path not far from the foundation and said, “I saw you are out there on that foundation for a long time. It used to be an antenna range used by Texas Instruments.” I was all confused. The drugs, the alcohol, the failed marriage, and now God speaking to me.

When I returned home, my wife was moving out. The next day I went to work with a bandage on my head. My wife worked there also. Everybody asked “what happened?” It was very shameful and very embarrassing.

As I was sitting at my desk in my office, God spoke to me, and He said, “it was Me speaking through that jogger.” Jesus was that foundation and had been there for a long time.” Next thing, somebody called me on the phone, and said, “Let me pray for you.” I don’t remember who it was and he said, “I pray a hedge of protection around you in the Name of the blood of Jesus.” I could see the face of Jesus on the wall, and in front of me. I went to the bathroom and cried.

Within six months I was free from alcohol, drugs, and promiscuity.

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